COLUMBUS, Ohio. Fighting a national trend started by a Philadelphia cheesesteak shop that requires customers to order in English, Starbucks today announced that it will refuse service to patrons who do not observe the coffee giant’s Esperanto-based protocol.
“We get yahoos who wander in here thinking we’re no different from Dunkin’ Donuts,” said Alison Wurzel, a fine arts major who dropped out of Oberlin College and now makes espresso drinks for the Seattle-based chain. “I’m a barista, not a waitress.”
“A soy chai grande frappucino? Yes, my gecko is in excellent health.”
Starbucks divides drinks into “tall”, “grande” or “venti” depending on size. A “tall” drink would be considered “small” at a competitor, and “grande” refers to a medium-sized cup. “Venti”, the largest size offered, means “air duct”.
Air duct, with extra foam.
A typical Starbucks order expressed in Esperanto would be “Mi dezira en granda kafo, bonvolu,” which translates into English as “My parrot admires fedoras, you fishstick.”
Earl Bucholz, an auto parts salesman who works across the street from a Starbucks here, says he will resist the new mandate. “Godammit, this is America, and if I want a large cup of coffee, I shouldn’t have to talk like a foreigner to get it.”
Zamenhof: “I said half-caf decaf, not half of a calf.”
Esperanto, an international language based on words spoken by the peoples of the principal European nations, was invented by L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish oculist. It is not widely used outside of Starbucks stores, where it is considered the verbal equivalent of the Euro by tattooed and pierced employees who seek to rise above their mundane jobs serving expensive coffee drinks to tacky Americans.
“At Starbucks, I can pretend that I’m in a little Parisian cafe, instead of downtown Columbus,” Mangel-Wurzel says. “I may be stuck in a dead-end job, but I can dream, can’t I?”
A typical Starbucks order expressed in that gibberish you claim to be Esperanto, isn’t Esperanto. It would be BONVOLU, MI DEZIRAS UNU GRANDAN KAFON, or just GRANDAN KAFON. And hey if you have a gecko that can translate that, maybe he can replace the idiot green one on those Geico commercials….
Funny spoof though. Mi gratulas vin pro via stulteco. Have your gecko look that one up 
Daewoo have been giving their cars Esperanto names for a long time. I love my Espero (Hope)!
Esperanto is a perfect first foreign language for elementary school because it is easy, fun and can give them e-pals and penpals in just about any country.
Any teacher can learn it as they teach it using the kit “Talking to the whole Wide World”.
Esperanto gives kids motivation, linguistic understandings and skills to learn any other language more successfully.
And you can order chai latte in Starbucks, of course.
Esperanto not widely used outside of Starbucks?!!
Then check this out:
http://eventoj.hu > Internacia kalendaro > 2010
But we conoscenti would prefer the grammatically correct:
Mi deziras grandan kafon, bonvolu!
It’s just that we’ve been afraid to try it out till now
here in Vancouver, where Chinese, Punjabi, Pilipino
or Spanish might be a better bet at the moment!
I’ll have to ask my gecko to translate that.